Google I/O 2024 Keynote: AI Innovation
Yesterday was the Google I/O 2024 keynote and AI was the undeniable star of the show. Google showcased advancements across its Gemini family of large language models (LLMs) and unveiling a futuristic AI assistant called Project Astra. Here’s a quick rundown of the key takeaways:
Ask Photos: You can already search your photos in Google Photos, but it appears search is really improving to help find stuff in all those photos that we have stored in our account. You will be able to ask questions like “what is my car registration plate number?” and photos scroll through years of photos that you have stored in your account to find the answer.
Gemini Gets a Boost: The new Gemini 1.5 Pro offers improved translation, coding, reasoning, and more. Soon, we will be able to upload huge amounts of data and ask it to provide actionable advice. This could be huge for students that need to synthesise large amounts of content.
Notebook LM & Learn LM: When you upload the documents that are central to your class projects, NotebookLM instantly becomes an expert in the information that matters most to you. This will only available in the U.S. for users 18 and up for now but from the demo this could really help students. https://notebooklm.google/. We are going to start seeing features of this included in Google Classroom to help lighten the load on teachers in something called LearnLM.
Search is improving: AI will help find answers quicker and more helpful. Ask Video allows you to use video within your search queries, allowing for a more nuanced and interactive way to find information. Circle to Search on Android will allow you to search items that you circle on a picture!
Gemini for Workspace: Launching later in the year to Workspace Labs, AI workflows will start being included in applications like Sheets. Data Q&A looks to be the replacement for the Explore button that they recently took away.
Virtual Teammate: Soon we will be able to create and customise a virtual teammate that can search and synthesise conversations and more in just a few minutes. This will soon open up to 3rd party developers.
Project Astra: Your On-Device AI Companion: Project Astra stole the show. This futuristic AI assistant aims to run on your phone (and maybe even glasses someday!), offering real-time, context-aware help throughout your day.
Gems: Soon Gemini Advanced subscribers will soon be able to create Gems — customised versions of Gemini. You can create any Gem to respond to your specific needs: a gym buddy, sous chef, coding partner or creative writing guide.
Introducing Google VEO: Buckle up for a revolution in video creation! Google unveiled VEO, a first-of-its-kind generative video application. With just text prompts, VEO can create high-quality videos in various styles. Imagine describing a “timelapse of a flower blooming” and getting a stunning, realistic video in seconds! You can try to join the waitlist for this at Labs.google.
This is just a taste of what Google I/O 2024 had to offer. It will undoubtably change the landscape for how we search, find and use information.
The I/O Keynote was 2 hour long. If you are interested in watching a more streamlined verison, check out this 17 minute version from The Verge.
